Ted Cruz: Trump shouldn’t be president because he’s ‘less subtly disgusting than me.’

BELL FALLS, NEW YORK — At a campaign stop in New York late this week, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) told event attendees and the press afterward that he “truly believes God’s hand” is guiding him into a showdown with billionaire Donald Trump, who Cruz said is “far too overtly disgusting” to be president and instead voters should consider someone “subtly disgusting” like himself.

“You cannot elect Donald as your president,” Cruz told his audience, “because he doesn’t understand how the game is played. Mind you, when I condemned his gutter politics the other day, it was truly ironic considering the dirty tricks I’ve been played on Ben Carson. It’s insanely ironic that the guy who has made a name for himself trashing the reputation of every one of his colleagues — inside his party and without it — is lecturing someone on being an obtuse and gross person. But still, you know what I’m saying.”

Cruz said Trump’s rhetoric itself “isn’t bad” but he “doesn’t know how to massage it” to make it more palatable for General Election voters.

“Look, I have pretty much agreed with most of what Donald has proposed and said,” Cruz told reporters after the rally, “whether it was treating Muslims like second class citizens or treating immigrants like garbage people, we have been in pretty much rigorous agreement on the major issues. But the difference between us is that I’m willing to at least water down my vitriol and couch it in familiar dog whistle terms that the racists and Islamaphobes will hear, but that average Republicans might just mistake for cogent political rhetoric.”

Senator Cruz said that ultimately it’s Trump’s brazen and unapologetic tone that should scare off voters, not the content of its message.

“I truly have no problem with the nuts and bolts of what he says,” Cruz explained, “but he is far too overtly disgusting a human being to be elected president. He’s just not presidential, you see. That’s why the American people need to elect someone who is coy in his foulness. The simple truth is that Donald Trump is less overtly disgusting than me, and that’s why Republican voters, and indeed all American voters, should put their trust in me. I will be disgusting, but I will be disgusting in a palatable, politically acceptable way.”

Cruz then left the event and told reporters he was going to work on legislation he intends to give to Congress on the first day of his administration. That legislation would de-fund Obamacare, close the borders to Muslims, give Texas back its sovereignty and make every vagina and uterus in the country property of the state, requiring a license to use them. Cruz is still currently trailing Trump in delegates, but won Utah’s caucus earlier this week.

“I’m just glad the establishment has realized they should hold their nose and get behind me,” Cruz said, “because that’s what every president looks like…a demagogue that’s only tolerated because a massive, gaping asshole is threatening to rend the party into shreds.”